Kuomintang
The Kuomintang (Chinese: 國民黨, translated sometimes as the Chinese Nationalist Party but abbreviated KMT) is a significant Chinese political party. Founded in 1912 by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the KMT has played a notable role in Chinese affairs since the Xinhai Revolution and is sometimes regarded as the largest republican and nationalist movement in China. After the failure of the Northern Expedition military campaign in 1926, the KMT lost its territorial base in southern China and has since suffered sporadic suppression by the Qing Government. It continues to operate underground throughout China and among exiles abroad. History Origins The Kuomintang can trace its heritage back to the Revive China Society, founded in Honolulu, Hawaii on November 24, 1894 by Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Sun had participated in revolutionary circles in Hong Kong and travelled abroad to seek financial support from the Chinese diaspora. He returned to Hong Kong the next year to merge his fledgling group with Yeung Ku-wan’s Furen Literary Society. The Revive China Society’s principal aim was to overthrow Manchu rule and promote Chinese modernization. In October of 1895, Sun and Yeung plotted for an uprising to take place in Guangzhou, but the plot was discovered by authorities and foiled. Under pressure from the Qing government, Britain expelled the Society’s leadership from Hong Kong. The revolutionaries spent their time traveling to overseas Chinese communities in Japan, Hawaii, North America, and Southeast Asia, founding new chapters and raising funds for more uprisings. Sun travelled across the United States and to Europe where he gained more exposure to Western ideas. In 1900, another attempt at revolt in Huizhou failed, and Yeung was assassinated by the Qing the following year. Sun’s travels in Europe and Japan put him in contact with members of the foreign-educated Chinese intelligentsia. On August 20th 1905, a meeting of revolutionaries in Tokyo resulted in the merger of the Revive China Society with several other organizations to form the Tongmenghui (Chinese United League). The Tongmenghui eventually included many future leaders of the KMT such as Song Jiaoren, Huang Xing, Hu Hanmin, and Wang Jingwei. The group published its own newspaper and established chapter among the overseas Chinese. A number of smaller uprisings were attempted without success. After months of preparation in Malaysia, the Tongmenghui staged a second major uprising in Guangzhou on April 27, 1911. Though initially successful, it was put down by Qing soldiers with great bloodshed. Nonetheless, Manchu control over China was fading rapidly. When the provincial army in Wuchang mutinied against the Qing authorities, beginning the Xinhai Revolution, it quickly aligned itself with the broader revolutionary movement. The Tongmenghui led the way in organizing a provisional government, first in Shanghai and later in Nanjing. On December 29th Sun was elected provisional president, and three later on January 1st, 1912 he declared the establishment of the Republic of China. The Beiyang Government Although the Tongmenghui had been a major force in the success of the Xinhai Revolution, it was widely agreed that the defection of ex-Qing general Yuan Shikai was the decisive factor. Sun agreed to cede the presidency to Yuan once the Qing government had formally abdicated and the country stabilized. Yuan was sworn in as president in Beijing on March 10th, marking the beginning of the Beiyang Republic. Sun and his allies now worked to transform the revolutionary Tongmenghui into a national political party that could stand in the upcoming parliamentary elections. On August 25, 1912 the Kuomintang was officially founded in Beijing. Although Sun was elected as party chairman, he became aloof from politics and instead spent his time promoting national development. Song Jiaoren led the Kuomintang’s national campaign and elections were held over the course of two months from December 1912 to January 1913. The Kuomintang won a majority of seats and Song became de facto parliamentary leader. The KMT’s main opposition in parliament was the pro-Yuan Republican Party led by Liang Qichao, and Song Jiaoren became increasingly critical of President Yuan’s disregard for parliament. On March 20, 1913 Song was boarding a train in Shanghai to Beijing when he was assassinated. Everyone involved in the assassination ended up dead, and every piece of evidence pointed towards Yuan’s involvement. The next month, Yuan secured a loan of 25 million pounds sterling from Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Japan without consulting parliament. The KMT cried for Yuan’s removal from power and their parliamentary opponents accused them of fomenting insurrection. In July, Sun Yat-sen declared the beginning of Second Revolution to remove Yuan. Seven provinces in southern China aligned with the KMT and mobilized provincial armies. The Beiyang Army defeated the leading KMT army in Jiangxi in August and a month later Nanjing fell to Yuan’s forces. By November the Second Revolution had totally failed and once again Sun and his followers were forced to flee overseas. Yuan declared the KMT outlawed and removed KMT members of parliament; since the KMT formed the majority, parliament could not meet quorum and was unable to convene. In exile, the KMT fractured. Sun reconstituted the party as the Zhonghúa Gémìngdang (Chinese Revolutionary Party), returning the organization to its old secret-society model. But many of his former allies refused to join, angry at Sun’s arrogance in starting the Second Revolution and suspicious of his increasing demand for personal loyalty. Most chapters of the party in the diaspora simply continued to operate under the Kuomintang name. In the meantime the Weltkrieg had begun. In 1915, after seizing Qingdao from Germany, Japan issued the Twenty-One Demands to China, demanding what amounted to a Japanese protectorate over China. At first, this caused Chinese nationalists the world over to support Yuan’s government, which made Sun and his stridently anti-Yuan stance even more unpopular. However, the situation quickly turned. After acceding to a reduced version of the Twenty-One Demands, Yuan declared himself Emperor of China on the 12th of December. The provincial generals declared their independence from Beijing and formed the National Protection Army to remove Yuan. With practically the whole country in rebellion against him, Yuan stepped down as emperor on March 22nd, 1916 and died less than three months later. The reestablished Beiyang Republic was now at the mercy of the warlords, but this chaos gave the KMT the opportunity to reenter the scene. The Constitutional Protection Movement By 1917, the government in Beijing was plainly under the control of Duan Qirui’s Anqing Clique. In July, Sun returned to Guangzhou and sent out a call for members of the original parliament to come and form a rival government. About 100 came to Guangzhou on September 25th and declared a provisional military government, claiming to protect the provisional constitution from the tyrannies of the northern warlords. Thus, the Constitutional Protection Movement began. Sun was elected generalissimo with warlords Tang Jiyao of Yunnan and Lu Rongting of Guangxi as marshals. Governor Chen Jiongming of Guangzhou also provided major support. The Constitutional Protection War was at first favorable to the military government, as Tang’s army conquering Guizhou and Sichuan and Duan’s first attempted invasion was defeated in November. As time wore on, it became increasingly apparent that Sun and his followers possessed little actual power within the government, and most of it was in the hands of the warlords, particularly those of the Guangxi Clique. In early 1918 the military government was reorganized, now being led by a seven-member executive council known as the Governing Committee. Besides Sun, all of the seats were controlled by members of the Yunnan or Guangxi Cliques. Realizing his marginalization, Sun resigned his seat and left for Shanghai. Cen Chunxuan became the new generalissimo, completing the Guangxi Clique’s takeover of the southern government. An armistice was signed with the northern warlords, but talks for permanent reconciliation of the two governments dragged on into 1919. In Shanghai, Sun spent time mending old relationships and plotting his return. On October 10th, 1919 the KMT was formally reorganized with the new title Chinese Kuomintang. The political field had changed as the Zhili Clique ousted the Anhui Clique for control of the northern government. When the Guangxi Clique moved to explore unification with the Zhili, the KMT denounced them, beginning the Second Constitutional Protection Movement. The southern parliament moved to Yunnan in August of 1920, as tensions between Tang’s Yunnan Clique and the Guangxi Clique were rising. At the same time, former governor Chen gathered his exiled forces in neighboring Fujian and invaded west on the 11th. His armies were able to push Guangxi warlord Lu Rongting out of Guangdong by October, and in November Sun and the KMT were able to return to Guangzhou. Reorganization By 1920 it was clear the KMT was taking a new direction. Remembering the factionalism that helped bring down the early republic, not to mention the resistance he faced during the time in exile, Sun demanded that all members of the party take an oath of loyalty to the generalissimo; that is, Sun himself. Many members balked at this, and some refused to take the oath (most notably Wang Jingwei), but the majority of the rank-and-file agreed. In the meanwhile, a new generation of revolutionaries was returning from Europe. During the Weltkrieg, the British and French had recruited a Chinese Labour Corps to serve on the Western Front, and these young men witnessed not just the war but the syndicalist revolution in France. The Commune became the largest sponsor of work-study programs for Chinese students in Europe, such as future luminary Zhou Enlai. This French influenced expanded both the size and radicalism of the party’s left wing. In January, the National Assembly reconvened in Guangzhou. With the Yunnan warlords absent and the Guangxi warlords defeated, the Assembly dissolved the old military government and elected Sun “extraordinary president”. Although the KMT finally controlled the southern government, their power was far from stable. No foreign country recognized its legitimacy, and its form existed outside the constitution it was theoretically upholding. More importantly, President Sun and Governor Chen were increasingly at odds. Chen, who had his own ideology for a China united under federalism, invited all sorts of syndicalists and anarchists to stay in Guangdong, which ran contrary to Sun’s increasing emphasis on one-party KMT rule. Their first disagreement came to a head when Tang Jiyao was temporarily overthrown by Gu Pinzhen in Yunnan. Sun wanted Tang to serve his national revolution, whereas Chen wanted to support Tang’s recapture of Yunnan. Chen was wary of giving Sun more power and thought that Tang, if supported, could become more favorable to his federalist movement. In the end, Tang was able to regain control of the Yunnan Clique with Chen’s help, and several generals who served under Gu offered their services to the KMT. In 1922, the Commune of France recognized the KMT-controlled assembly in Guangzhou as the legitimate government of China. France was seeking to counter Germany’s domination of Chinese affairs and offered to send badly-needed aid to the KMT. The influx of French syndicalist and former Bolshevik advisors further strengthened the increasingly dominant left wing of the KMT under Wang Jingwei and Liao Zhongkai. An emboldened Sun demanded that Chen direct his forces into Hunan so that the Northern Expedition to liberate China from the northern warlords could commence. In Beijing, however, the First Zhili-Fengtian War had just ended and President Xu Shichang offered to have himself and Sun resign their presidencies and reunite the country peacefully. Chen asked Sun to accept the offer, but he refused. On June 16th, 1922 Chen directed his forces to shell Sun’s residence in Guangzhou. The KMT leader and his followers were forced to flee to Shanghai. Chen had received assurances from Wu Peifu of the Zhili Clique that he would be able to continue as governor of Guangdong is he nominally supported the government in Beijing. In the meantime, Tang invaded Guangxi in the Yunnan-Guangxi War. The Old Guangxi Clique was defeated, and the New Guangxi Clique that rose to replace it aligned itself with the KMT. With Tang’s assistance the KMT was able to retake Guangdong in 1923 and Chen was forced to flee to Huizhou in the east. As this was accomplished in large part due to French assistance, the dominance of the leftist wing of the KMT grew stronger. In 1924 the 2nd Zhili-Fengtian War broke out when Zhili warlord Qi Xieyuan attempted to take over Zhejiang province. Sun aligned the KMT with the Fengtian Clique headed by Zhang Zuolin and began marching his newly-trained army north to face off against Zhili warlord Sun Chuanfang. The KMT forces were successful in the first minor battles and it looked as if the Northern Expedition was finally beginning. Unfortunately, a rebellion broke it in Guangzhou led by the Merchant Corps and augmented by Chen Jiongming loyalists. Sun was forced to return south to suppress the revolt and Sun maintained Zhili control around Nanjing. Nonetheless, Zhang’s Fengtian forces and Feng Yuxiang’s Northwest Army (Guominjun) were able to push back the Zhili and conquer Beijing. For perhaps the first time since the revolution, the KMT was part of the winning coalition. Sun traveled to Beijing to meet with President Duan, Zhang, and Feng to discuss national reunification. The talks soon stalled and Sun succumbed to liver cancer, dying on March 25th, 1925. The Northern Expedition Sun had been the leader of the Kuomintang since before its inception, and his death led to a scramble for power within the party leadership. Although warlord Tang Jiyao considered contesting leadership, he instead chose to focus on building his domain in Yunnan. The two prime candidates for leader were Hu Hanmin, leader of the KMT’s more nationalist right wing, and Wang Jingwei, leader of the more socialist left wing. Although Hu was a civilian leader, most of the right’s support came from officers in the National Revolutionary Army. The NRA’s commander Chaing Kai-shek, despite being a rightest himself, saw Hu as a rival. Standing with Wang on the left was Liao Zhongkai, known for being very favorable towards the French and syndicalism in general. On August 20th, Liao was arriving at a meeting of the KMT Executive Committee when he was grievously wounded by an assassin. Chiang and Wang seized the opportunity after evidence was found implicating Hu and his protege Xu Chongzhi in the crime and the pair was tried and executed. Although Hu’s allies were incensed, Chiang was able to reconcile the rightists in the New Guangxi clique to accept his leadership. Thus a sort of duumvirate was formed with Wang as KMT generalissimo and Chiang as supreme commander of the NRA and its affiliates, Liao being made acting president of the revolutionary government in Guangzhou. During the year 1925, the balance of power in China was changing rapidly. The great Canton-Hong Kong strike marked the first major labor strike in Chinese history and boosted the profile of the KMT left and its syndicalist allies. Another attempt by Chen Jiongming to retake Guangzhou is defeated and the former governor fled to Hong Kong. The collapse of the British Empire raised hopes that the revolutionary government could take Hong Kong, but the arrival of German troops to defend the area quashed that hope. In the north, the Guominjun-Fengtian coalition that had dominated since the 2nd Zhili-Fengtian War broke down, with the Anti-Fengtian War pitting the Guominjun against an alliance of Fengtian and the Zhili. Chiang attempted to bring Shanghai warlord Sun Chuanfang to the KMT’s side, but was unsuccessful. By early 1926, the Anti-Fengtian War was winding down with the Guominjun as the losing party. In Beijing, syndicalist-led protests against foreign intervention were bloodily put down, embarrassing the government of President Duan Qirui. With the northern warlords exhausted from the recent war and a revolutionary mood in the capital, Chiang Kai-shek decided it was time to strike. On July 9th, Chiang gave a speech before 100,000 soldiers of the NRA announcing the commencement of the Northern Expedition. Thanks to years of buildup, organization, and assistance from French and Russian advisors, the NRA had become one of the most powerful fighting forces in China. During the first weeks of the offensive the NRA made rapid progress, surging towards its first objectives at Wuhan and Nanchang. The Northern Expedition was not only a direct threat to the northern warlords, but caused consternation among the foreign powers. Germany, which had developed strong ties with the Zhili Clique, saw in the KMT the danger of revolutionary socialism and enforced a blockade of the south China coast. The NRA successfully took Nanchang and two-thirds of the Wuhan conurbation, but Wuchang held out. In September, Chiang demanded all foreign powers withdraw their gunships from the Wuhan area, but Germany defied the order and secretly ferried supplies to the Wuchang garrison. In early 1927, frustrated with the stalled siege, Chiang moved his attention to the east, hoping to capture Nanjing. Germany dispatched two forces in response, one from Singapore to land at Guangzhou and another from Qingdao moving south. Nanjing warlord Sun Chuanfang was retreating before the NRA’s advance, but was reinforced by German forces and this combined army turned to face Chiang at Jinhua. The result was a decisive defeat as the NRA proved no match for the superior German forces and Chiang was forced to retreat to Nanchang. At the same time, news came from the south that the Germans had taken Guangzhou. A number of rightest KMT members, angry at Chiang Kai-shek’s betrayal of Hu Hanmin and his failure at Jinhua, assassinated the general. With their commander dead, the demoralized and increasingly disorganized NRA units fled south. The Kuomintang’s position deteriorated rapidly. After the Germans took Guangzhou they supported the return of the warlords, who quickly retook control of Guangdong and Guangxi. Without a political base, Wang Jingwei and the Executive Committee were forced to flee to Hong Kong. The various NRA armies were cut off some support and left to their own fates. The remaining rightest generals, regrouping in Changsha, decided to remain in China and attempt to rebuild their forces, and the remnants of their armies eventually found sanctuary in Yunnan. The last NRA forces surrender in February 1928, ending the Northern Expedition. In Exile The newly-restored Qing outlawed the Kuomintang, forcing the party to go underground, at least nominally. In reality, the continued lack of central authority meant that the KMT continued to operate both in urban areas and the countryside, especially as the Zhili became preoccupied with the 4th Zhili-Fengtian War. The NRA remnants in Yunnan led by general Zhu Peide reorganized as the National Foundation Army in 1928, but were yet hampered by the need to cooperate with their host Tang Jiyao. Intermittent conflict between the exiled New Guangxi Clique and the Old Guangxi Clique was settled through arbitration in 1930. In the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Fujian, meanwhile, another group of KMT remnants created a clandestine base of power in the mountainous region. The Central Executive Committee settled in France, further cementing the dominance of the leftists in the party. After many uneventful years, observers believed that the party leadership had lost its connection to Chinese affairs. This image was shattered in 1932 when a KMT-organized series of strikes and riots broke out in Hangzhou and neighboring cities. Sun Chuanfang violently crushed the rebels, but the incident proved that the KMT’s overseas leaders still had the capability to direct major uprisings. Ideology Three Principles of the People The official ideology of the Kuomintang is the Three Principles of the People, also known as San-min Doctrine. The Three Principles were first formulated by Sun Yat-sen in 1905 during his time in Europe. They are heavily influenced by Western political philosophy; Dr. Sun himself stated that he was inspired Abraham Lincoln’s expression, “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” # Mínzú, usually translated as “nationalism”. Sun believed that the Chinese people lacked a national consciousness and that the formation of such a consciousness was one of the goals of the revolution. In its early days, Chinese nationalism was primarily defined by anti-Manchu sentiment but now stresses opposition to Western and Japanese imperialism. The Kuomintang now supports the pluralist doctrine of Five Races Under One Union and the restoration of full Chinese sovereignty of the territory of the former Qing Empire. # Mínquán, usually translated as “democracy”. Sun drew his ideas of democracy from Western constitutionalism. He envisioned a government composed of five branches (yuans): executive, legislative, judicial, auditing, and examination. The people would be able to express their political desires through the four powers of election, recall, initiative, and referendum. # Mínshēng, usually translated as “the people’s livelihood” but sometimes as “socialism”. The last of the principles that Sun developed, it grew from his belief in the inadequacy of capitalism and the people’s need for social welfare. Sun was particularly inspired by American economist Henry George’s land value tax and considered land reform as the primary economic programme of the revolutionary government. Although minsheng was originally conceived as something closer to social democracy, since Sun’s death the radical left of the party has defined it as socialism. The Three Stages of Revolution After the failure of the KMT revolt Yuan Shikai and China’s subsequent fall into warlordism, Sun Yat-sen contemplated the reasons for the failure of the Xinhai Revolution. He came to the conclusion that the attempt to foist constitutional government onto a society that was unprepared for it was doomed to fail. In 1918, he formulated the Three Stages of Revolution. # The Period of Destruction: revolution and rule by military government # The Transitional Period: political tutelage under the party-state # The Period of Reconstruction: multi-party constitutional democracy According to Sun, the introduction of the second stage was necessary to prepare the people for constitutional governance and prevent them from falling back into old reactionary habits. The idea of political tutelage has, however, been the subject of criticism by non-KMT republicans, who see it as an abrogation of democratic principles and a de facto one-party dictatorship. Moreover, the division between the first and second periods has never been well-defined and the two are sometimes conflated. Left- and right-wing interpretations Because the Kuomintang is such a large organization, there has always been a certain diversity belief regarding the interpretation of its core principles, especially since the death of Sun Yat-sen. The right-wing of the party tends to emphasize minzu and denies the compatibility of KMT ideology with Western-style socialism. Since the death Hu Hanmin, the principle rightest ideologue, the right-KMT has tended to find its greatest support among the officers of the NRA. The left-wing of the party emphasizes minsheng and interprets it as essentially socialistic. With the sponsorship of the KMT by the Internationale, the left wing has become dominant, at least in the civilian leadership. Since the exile to France, chairman Wang Jingwei has developed “Wang Jingwei Thought”, an elaboration of KMT ideology that blames the defeat of the Northern Expedition on the failure of the party to enact a true social revolution. By undermining the exploitative economic system and enacting real reforms that create a democratic economy controlled by and for the Chinese, the KMT would gain the trust of the common people and the revolution would be a success. Organization The Kuomintang is a vast organization with thousands of members both within China and abroad. The party is controlled by the Central Committee, currently under chairman Wang Jingwei and seated in France. Since the 20s the KMT has been a highly centralized organization which demands a great degree of loyalty from its members and prohibits them from participating in most other political movements (the major exception being the small Chinese Syndicalist Party). As the party is currently banned in China, most of the party’s civilian leadership resides in Paris or Calcutta. Financial support comes chiefly from the overseas Chinese communities in North America and maritime Southeast Asia, although these groups tend to be much less radical than the party leadership. Within China the KMT must operate underground by necessity, although this varies by province depending on the local warlord’s tolerance of the party. The KMT is organized through a network of student societies, labor unions, peasant organizations, and even criminal gangs. Through these, the party may circulate revolutionary literature, carry out the assassination of minor officials, or support workers’ strikes like the in the Shanghai Uprising of 1932. Revolutionary actions are coordinated by the ZhongTeJu Bureau, the party’s intelligence agency which is based in Shanghai. The largest region of KMT activity is located in Fujian and southern Jiangzi, dubbed the JiangFu Insurgent Zone by the Zhili Clique. In this mountainous region, a number of “stay-behind” regiments of the NRA created a hidden stronghold centered in Longyan county. Because of Fujian’s governor warlord Zhou Yinren has been incapable of extending his rule into the interior of the province, the Kuomintang was able to establish a shadow government with the assistance of local peasant leaders. The Provincial Government of Fujian, as it is known, is led by Song Qingling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen. The KMT has established a rudimentary democracy in this area based on San-min ideology, and it is believed that the JiangFu zone will serve as the starting point for a future national revolution. The National Republican Army The National Revolutionary Army is the military arm of the Kuomintang. Founded in 1925, the NRA was formed by graduates of the Whampoa Military Academy which had been established the previous year. Thanks to the assistance of former Bolsheviks and French communards, the NRA quickly became one of the most well-trained fighting forces in all of China. In the early phases of the Northern Expedition the NRA performed exceptionally well, but after the loss at Jinhua and the death of Chiang Kai-shek, the various armies fell into disorganized retreat. Most NRA units were disintegrated in the face of pursuing warlord armies and mass desertion. A few, however, escaped destruction. The 3rd Army, led by Zhu De and a large number of rightist officers, sought sanctuary in Tang Jiyao’s Yunnan Clique. Though Tang was initially reluctant, he was forced to accept them in by his allies. The 7th Army, also known as the “Army of Steel”, is controlled by Li Zongren and his New Guangxi Clique. Li joined his fellow rightists in seeking refuge in Yunnan, and his army currently patrols the Yunnan-Guangxi border. The 4th “Iron” Army fled to the southeast after the Northern Expedition. Some units managed to flee abroad; others retreated to the hills to form the nucleus of what became the JiangFu Zone. The largest contingent retreated to Guangdong under Chen Mingshu, where it formed a partnership of convenience with Chen Jiongming. Although these groups and others continue to operate under the NRA label, there is no unifying command and each army operates essentially independently under the direction of its commanding officers. This is especially true of those controlled by rightest generals, whose attitude to the leftist Central Committee is cool if not hostile. Category:Political parties Category:Chinese-related topics